About This Statistic. This statistic shows the dollar sales of ice cream in the United States in 2017, by type. The sales of ice cream amounted to approximately 6.6 billion U.S. dollars in the 52 weeks ending May 27, 2017.
DEFINITION of 'Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF)'. An ETF, or exchange traded fund, is a marketable security that tracks an index, a commodity, bonds, or a basket of assets like an index fund. Unlike mutual funds, an ETF trades like a common stock on a stock exchange. ETFs experience price changes throughout the day as they are bought and sold.
It was State Street Global Advisors that launched the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) in 1993 with the introduction of the SPDR. Since then, ETFs have continued to grow in popularity and gather assets at a rapid pace. The easiest way to understand ETFs is to think of them as mutual funds that trade like stocks. This trading characteristic is one of the many features that have made ETFs so attractive, particularly to professional investors and individual active traders. (For a background on what ETFs are and how they work, check out Introduction to Exchange-Traded Funds.) The Benefits of Trading Like a Stock.